week 1 9/2 w	introductions	writing assignment
week 2 9/7 no class on m, class on friday		American Graffiti written & directed by George Lucas
week 3 9/14		Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain M: chapters 1-15 W: chapters 16-31
week 4 9/21		Adventures of Huckleberry Finn M: chapters 32-42
week 5 9/28 no class on wednesday; class on friday		The Year of Living Dangerously directed by Peter Weir
Week 6 10/5		Days of Heaven written and directed by Terrance Malick
Week 7 10/12		review; essays
Fall Break 10/17-10/25
Week 8 10/26		A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley M: Book One & Two M: Part Three
Week 9 11/2		A Thousand Acres M: Books Four, Five, and Six
Week 10 11/9		Lone Star written and directed by John Sayles
Week 11 11/16		Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson M: chapters 1-5 W: chapters 6-8
Week 12 1/23 no class on Wednesday		Housekeeping M: chapters 9-11
Week 13 11/30		Blade Runner directed by Ridely Scott, written by Fancher and Peoples
Week 14 12/7		presentation of projects
Week 15 12/14 no class

In order to deal with the spacing of classes according to the regular calendar, I've scheduled two class sessions on Fridays in weeks 2 & 5 and dropped sessions on Wednesday of week 12 and Monday of week 15. We have the same total number of class sessions but redistributed.

You'll be expected to have seen each movie before we begin class discussion, if possible twice.
For the novels the daily assignments are noted in the schedule.

I expect you to attend class. I take attendance. We have 24 meetings during the semester, it isn't that hard to show up. I expect you to keep track of your own attendance as well; "I didn't realize I'd missed that many classes" is not an excuse.

You're allowed 1 unexcused absence, which is absence for reasons other than illness or family emergency. "I forgot, I hadn't read the material, I was working on a paper for another class, I'm in a production of The Sunshine Boys and we had rehearsal, my fish was depressed, I don't do Mondays etc. etc. etc." are not excusable absences. After the 1 allowed unexcused absence your grade starts to go down.

After a total of 6 unexcused absences, you will have missed 25% of the course. After a total of 6 unexcused absences, don't bother to come back because you've just No Entry-ed the course.

Academic or emergency incompletes are yours to take if you want, as long as you are in good standing in the course. You don't need to tell me the story, unless you want to; I trust that you wouldn't take an incomplete without a good reason. "Good Standing" means that you have completed all the work assigned for the first module and at least some of the work for the second

• Attendance at Writing Workshops is required
• Written work must be handed in on time.
• Late essays will be accepted at the discretion of the instructor
• All work must be accepted in order to get credit for the course.
• All writing assignments are judged on the quality of expression as well as content;
  for our purposes here, quality of expression and thought are equally important.

Essay #1 a critical essay of @1400 words.

Essay # 2 critical essay of @1400 words.

The choice of topic for these essays is open; you may write on a particular work or do a comparative essay. More information on these assignments is available on the Critical Writings Assignments page.

• Essays must be typed, double spaced, stapled together,with pages numbered.
• Backs of previously used paper is fine for drafts; final version should be printed on both sides of the sheet.
• Essays must have a title, though they don't have to have a cover sheet.
• References should be in the following form: (Wordsworth, "Preface" p. 2) in the body of the text
•  

Everyone will do a brief presentation (about five minutes) with a partner during the course of the semester. Presentations will take place on the second day of discussion about a particular work.

For the presentation each pair should meet and discuss what the work and what issues, questions, or problems each of them finds most interesting. Each pair can/should meet with me on Tuesday afternoon. The questions will be circulated via e-mail before class; all members of the class are responsible for reading and thinking about the questions before hand.

The presenters will explain why these seem like important or interesting questions to them, how they devised them, and what they were trying to accomplish by looking at the work through this particular lens.

Presentations will be judged on the quality of presentation as well as content; thus mumbling, shuffling of papers, general chaos and incoherence count against you.

You'll write two short essays (about 600 words) one each module. You'll be assigned to a writing group of four and groups will rotate responsibility for the short essays. Short essays are due on Fridays at the end of the discussion of a particular work. These essays are meant to be reflective rather than analytical; you should write about how thisparticular work has affected your thinking about the sense of time and place. By the end of the semester, everybody will have written on this subejct twice in relation to two different narratives. Each small group should meet to discuss that week's text, using both their own reponse and what went on in class to formulate a a short essay about the nature of time and place through the work we have been talking about.

If you're not scheduled to make a presentation or write a short essay in a particular week, you're assignment is to write a very brief comment (about 200 words) about the work we are discussing. These comments are due on Monday when be begin discussion. These comments can take the form of questions you have about the work or short interpretive comments in which you try to characterize the significance or impact of the work. I'll ask two or three of you to read these comments at the beginning of the class, but everyone should feel free to raise the issues they have come up with during discussion.

In addition to critical and reflective writing, I'd like you to to do a project which synthesizes and explores your thinking over the course of the semester. This can be in any medium--visual, musical, or textual. At the end of the semester we'll take time for people to present their projects to the class. Each person will also produce a short, one page statement about what they were trying to accomplish in their project.

The theme of this course is the sense of time and place; such concepts seems at once prevasive, essential, and invisible. For this essay I'd like you to think about the meaning of these times; meaning isn't the same as defintion, as meaning involves your understanding of the signifcance and importance of these concepts, not just their referent. I'd also like you to think about how you came to your understanding of the meaning of these terms, and your sense of their relation (is there a link between time and place, or are they separate and unrelated concepts?)

In thinking about these issues, I also want you to reflect on where these meanings come from; how did you come to this understanding of time and place, both intellectually and experientially.

This topic is large, but precise. In order to write about this, you're going to have to find specifices and details in your own background, experience, and thoughts. I'm aksing you to explore your own ideas, ideas which may be so familiar to you at this point that you don't even recognize them as ideas or assumption. It may be a little unfamiliar to try to use your own ideas and assumptions as an object of interpretation but if we're going to explore these topics over the course of the semester it seems important to have some idea of what you are bringing to the expedition.

This essay is due on Tuesday, Sept. 8 by noon at my office, Rice 114; it should be about 600-750 words long.